
Prof. Miriam Meckel
Prof. Miriam Meckel, PhD, is the Publisher of WirtschaftsWoche, Germany’s largest weekly business publication. She focuses on the brand’s digitalization process, its interactive membership community, and expanding internationalization efforts. Before joining WirtschaftsWoche, Miriam was the Managing Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where she has held a professorship for Corporate Communication since 2005. She served as a multi-year Faculty Associate at the “Berkman Center for Internet & Society” at Harvard University and was a visiting professor at Singapore Management University. From 2006-2007, she hosted a monthly political talk show on German television called “Miriam Meckel – Viewpoints”. Previously, Miriam spent four years in politics at the Office of the Premier of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia, first as Undersecretary for Media and government spokeswoman, then as Undersecretary for Europe, International Affairs, and Media. Miriam is an award-winning speaker, receiving the Cicero-Speaker Prize in the category of science in 2001, and a bestselling book author who has published prolifically on the development of the Internet, digital life and the future of journalism. Her autobiographical book “Letter to my life“ („Brief an mein Leben“) formed the basis of an award-winning television movie in 2016. Passionate about international and transatlantic exchange, she participated in the “European Asian Young Leaders Forum” of the Herbert-Quandt-Foundation from 2002-2005 and was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship of the USA in 2008. Miriam holds degrees in journalism, communication science, sinology, and political science from the University of Münster, Germany, and the University of Taipei, Taiwan, finishing as a doctor of philosophy.
Why I
Tech
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Technology is like a stretching exercise for our imagination – in its ideal form it can show us what the future holds and enrich the human experience.
#ada18’s motto is ideas to change the world – my tech idea is
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My tech idea is to create an AI-driven tool that generates speech from text and is able to mimic an individual journalist’s voice. By automatically imitating the particular tonality and conversational style of a real-life journalist, the tool highlights the diversity of voices in journalism, intensifies brand and personality association, and increases trust and intimacy with the listeners.